if I get too close (I'll pay the price)
by Someone aka Me
Summary: Oliver doesn't mean for it to happy. But when drowning his sorrows spirals out of control, at least he knows he's not alone.


Assignment 9: Muggle Art 1: Write about someone suffering a mental illness.

*Mounts soapbox* ADDICTION IS A MENTAL ILLNESS NOT A MORAL FAILING. *dismounts*

…

It starts…

Well. Oliver doesn't know how it starts.

But then, that's not entirely true.

It starts with him on Puddlemere's Reserve team, still Reserve, five years later. He's watched younger players come up, spend a few years on Reserve, and move up.

He wants to do better.

He practises harder, pushes himself further, but it never seems like it's enough.

His coworkers see the bags under his eyes and ask him if he's okay and all it does is make him feel like he should be doing better.

It starts with supplemental vitamin potions the team medic gives him because they'll help him build muscles, fly faster, maybe sleep better.

He's not sure how that slips into back alley hormones that he knows are against league rules even as he takes them.

All he knows is that they tell him they're pulling him up to a starting position and then a week later he gets an envelope containing a letter saying he failed his drug test. He gets kicked off the team.

He winds up at a bar, drunk and stumbling.

Percy finds him there, hours later. Oliver doesn't even remember contacting him.

It starts like that.

…

It becomes so much more.

It becomes his elixir.

He drinks to forget his lost career. But then his drinking leads to fights with Percy and Cedric and then he drinks to forget those.

He drinks and he stares at the candle behind the bar as though the flame is the most hypnotising thing he's ever seen and he tries to pretend like he's not living a life so fragile it could be a soap bubble.

It is madness.

It is madness, and it so easily slides from drinking because it makes him feel better to drinking because he feels terrible without it.

He hates himself.

He hates what he is becoming.

He just wants it to end.

…

In the end, the thing that shakes it all loose is the day he wakes up on the living room floor to Cedric sobbing on the couch, Percy's arms around him, Percy's voice low and soothing.

Oliver doesn't understand. He stares at the men he loves sitting on their navy couch, curled into each other looking broken, and he doesn't understand.

His head is throbbing. He craves the drink he knows will make it stop.

"What?" he finally mumbles.

They both turn to look at him. Cedric's eyes are bloodshot. Percy's face is hard.

There's silence, and then Cedric breaks it. "I thought you were dead," he says, his voice shaky and thin. "I came home and you were facedown in the carpet and I couldn't find your pulse and you were so _still_ and I _thought you were dead_."

And Oliver knows what he must've been thinking of.

He knows that Cedric came home from work one day to find his father facedown on the living room floor, the Dark Mark floating above their house.

Oliver never wanted to do this to him. Oliver never wanted to make him hurt in this way.

He never wanted any of this.

He just wanted the pain of losing everything he'd ever wanted to go away.

But now he's throwing up on the living room floor and hurting the people he loves and something's got to give.

…

He knows he can't do this by himself.

He sits on the couch with Percy on one side and Cedric on the other and he says, "I need your help."

His voice is small.

Cedric grips his hand tightly and says, "I wish I could understand how this feels for you. I know that I don't. But we are _here_. We are here by your side, whatever you want. Whatever you need from us."

Oliver bites his lip. "I'm so afraid of failing you."

Percy breathes in deep. "You could never fail us."

"Hey," Cedric says. "This… this has to be for you. You know that, right? We're here for you. And you can use us as motivation, but in the end you have to do this because _you_ want it."

Cedric is right. Oliver knows he's right.

But that doesn't make it easy.

…

Therapy is _awful_.

He hates it with a passion.

He comes home after the first session feeling like his brain's been pulled out of his head and turned around in his therapist's hands for an hour.

She makes him talk about everything, about what it felt like to know his dream was over. She made him examine why he started the steroids, why he felt like he had so much to prove.

And then, when she had him there, raw and flayed apart, she said, "Yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it."

Oliver doesn't know how to explain that he wants to do both.

He comes home desperately wanting a drink, but there's nothing in the house and the truth is he's shaking too hard to stand, so in the end he just sits on the couch and stares at the television that he'd insisted they get. It isn't even on.

Cedric finds him there.

He sits on the couch beside him, not quite touching but close enough that Oliver can feel the warmth.

He sinks into it, collapsing into Cedric.

Cedric wraps his arms around him and lets him breathe in the silence for a while.

Eventually, he says, "How did it go?"

And Oliver says, "Can I stop pretending that I'm happy now?"

Cedric looks at him, heart in his eyes, and says, "You never have to pretend for me."

And Oliver says, "It was terrible. I don't know… if I can do this."

Cedric sighs. "Was it terrible because it was therapy or was it terrible because the therapist wasn't right for you?"

Oliver thinks about that. Thinks about whether it would be better or worse to change to seeing someone else, to risk that a different therapist would be just the same and he'd only end up having to flay himself open in front of someone else.

They sit there on the couch until the sunlight fades and the moonlight rises.

Oliver is grateful for Cedric, who doesn't push.

…

Percy is different. Percy never stops pushing. Percy is the one who, when Oliver falls off the wagon, tells him that they're starting again, starting over, starting better. Percy is the one who helps him make daily goals that seem attainable.

As always, they show their love in different ways.

It's why Oliver loves them both, differently, but just as fiercely.

When he needs to be pushed he goes to Percy and when he needs to be listened to he goes to Cedric.

In the end, he switches therapists to a man with a soft voice and always moving hands. His office is warm with red and gold tones that make Oliver think of the Gryffindor common room in a way that's soothing and familiar.

He has no patience for nonsense and there are days when he still feels scraped open but with Dr. Meyers he never _leaves_ feeling raw and empty. Instead, Dr. Meyers peels him open during the session and puts him back together again before he leaves.

He doesn't judge Oliver when Oliver slips. He makes it three months, the first time. Three months until the craving hits him so hard while Percy and Cedric are both at work at the Ministry.

He sinks into a hole of desperation because the first sip of whiskey feels so familiar and the first glass sends a rush through his veins and the stress he's been living with slips away.

Percy finds him at the bar, drunk off his ass. Percy bites his lip, sighs, and says, "C'mon, babe. Let's go home."

Oliver looks at him. Percy has clearly come straight from work. His white button up is rolled to the elbows but his teal tie is still tight around his neck.

It's normally a look that makes Oliver's skin buzz.

Right now, everything's a little fuzzy but he stumbles up and into Percy's arms.

Percy sighs and helps him out of the bar.

…

Oliver wakes up groaning, head spinning, full of regret.

Percy is there, handing him a glass of water. Cedric is in the kitchen, making breakfast.

"I'm sorry," Oliver says, his voice raw.

Percy runs a hand through his hair and says, "It's okay. It's going to happen again. But someday it's going to stick."

Oliver can't tell if that's optimistic or not.

…

The next time, he makes it six months.

When he wakes up after a binge, he cries while both of his boyfriends hold him tight.

When he can speak, he says, "Why are you still with me? All I do is fuck up."

Cedric runs a hand over his arm and says, "Because you're more than this. You're also the man we love."

"This is just a part of you," Percy adds. "We all have our own demons."

Oliver laughs bitterly. "Yeah, but yours don't exactly ruin my life."

"You're not ruining anything," Cedric says.

"Right," Oliver says. "Because I'm sure it just _makes your day_ when you have to drag your drunk boyfriend home and make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit."

"It's not fun," Percy says, ever the brutally honest one. "But if it's what helps, then it's what we'll do."

Oliver doesn't think he deserves them.

But when he says that, Cedric says, "Love is not about what you deserve. Love is about what we choose to give."

Oliver doesn't know when he's going to get sobriety to stick. But he does know this: he's never going to be alone in this.

And that's what matters.

* * *

Writing Month: 1635

Moresome May: Dialogue: "I wish I could understand." Word count: 1635

Character Appreciation: 27. (trait) loyal / Disney: C6: Rafiki - Use the dialogue - "Yes, the past can hurt but, the way I see it you can either run from it, or learn from it" / Shannon's Showcase:6. Italy: Word: Bubble; Item: Candle / Book Club: Dominguez: (color) navy; (relationship) coworkers; (object) envelope / Showtime: 14. Suddenly - (dialogue) "I'm so afraid of failing you." / Days: No Tobacco Day - Write about someone trying to give up an addiction. (10 Point Bonus) / Buttons: D3: "Can I stop pretending that I'm happy now?" / Lyric Alley: 16. And although I was burning, you're the only light / Emy's Emporium: 5. Guyuk Khan - write about alcoholism

Film Festival: 24. Word: Bubble

Scavenger Hunt: 9. Use the prompt set: laughing (action), moonlight (word), madness (word)

Cooking: Whiskey; Plot Point: Someone drowning their sorrows; Song: Whiskey in the Jar - Thin Lizzy

Pokemon: if i get too close (i'll pay the price); 93. Haunter 1. Word: Nonsense; 3. Colour: Teal; 5. Trait: Loyal

Debate: Fanon, passion

Insane House: Word - Elixir - (A good potion)


End file.
